A few weeks ago I was in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. I had a rare opportunity, for a westerner, to visit the delta area slammed by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. Relief workers told us that as many as 300,000 lives were lost in Nargis, more than the total death toll of the 2004 tsunami, but the secretive Burmese government won’t confirm death counts. I was in Myanmar to visit projects supported by a client—the kind of trip foundation professionals call “Organizational Audit and Follow-up” (see a definition on the “Services” page for a translation!) Put more simply, we were there to see if the projects looked as good in-person as they did in the charity’s newsletters.

We took a 5-hour van ride away from the capitol city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon), down dirt roads toward the delta region. The effects of Nargis were still fresh—fields of felled trees, entire villages of new-construction shelters made of plywood and blue-plastic tarps, and everywhere, orphans. We also saw signs of hope. We visited about ten different projects and saw the great progress made in the past 10 months: the well-digging, the building of schools, small business-incubation and post-trauma counseling. Several new schools were built on monastery grounds, as collaborative efforts between local Buddhists and the Christian charity we visited.

The charity had implemented many best practices: it had collaborated well with indigenous workers, strengthened existing local communities, served the peoples’ physical and spiritual needs, listened to discern real needs of the affected people, designed relief efforts for project sustainability, and much more. Our follow-up efforts had a dual effect—affirming past grant decisions made, and also imbuing donors with confidence and expertise for future giving. Whether Myanmar or cross-town, there is no substitute for follow-up.